sons. A quiet woman, she can be very perceptive about human nature.

When writers tackle serious social issues, their characters often risk becoming mere caricatures rather than fully developed individuals. This novel is no exception; characters like Sheriff Quigley and Louis Leon are rendered one-dimensional and not fully fleshed out. However, several characters are so skillfully and thoroughly depicted that they linger in the reader's mind long after the book is finished. Chief among these are Archilde Leon, the protagonist; his father, Max Leon; his mother, Catharine Le Loup (also known as Faithful Catharine); and Father Grepilloux. Other characters, though less complex, are still memorable. These include Moser, a desperate and confused merchant speculator, and Horace Parker, an Indian agent who aspires to be seen as just.

McNickle's fiction features a host of Native American characters, both male and female, young and old, who navigate their circumstances resulting from European conquest in various ways—through understanding, resistance, assimilation, and accommodation. These characters are distinct individuals, not the romanticized or demonized versions often found in popular fiction by white authors. Among McNickle's memorable characters is Archilde Leon, a mixed-race young man and the youngest child of Max Leon, a Spaniard who immigrated to the United States, roamed the western territories for years, and eventually married Catharine Le Loup, a Salish Indian. Catharine is the daughter of Chief Running Wolf, niece of Modeste, and known post-conversion as Faithful Catharine by the Jesuit Fathers.

Archilde initially receives his education at the local Mission school under Father Grepilloux, a kind and well-meaning priest whom both Archilde and his father hold in high regard. Later, like McNickle himself, Archilde is forced to attend a harsh federal boarding school. Apart from learning to play the violin, Archilde's memories of this period are filled with pain and regret. His nephews, Mike and Narcisse, are similarly coerced or deceived into attending the federal Indian boarding school, which, while not explicitly named in the novel, is clearly modeled after Chemawa. Archilde's older brother, Louis Leon, undergoes a significant change after attending the Fathers' school, transforming from a loving son into a wild horse rider and thief who shows no respect or love for their mother. He embodies the "bad" Indian, rebelling against foreign religious and cultural forces.

Elise La Rose, the daughter of the "shiftless Octave La Rose," becomes Archilde's lover, adding another layer of complication that prevents him from leaving the valley. A passionate and crafty woman, she throws hot coffee in the sheriff's face and then, shooting from the hip, kills him with three shots to the chest. Modeste, the tribe's leading elder, brother to Running Wolf, and Catharine's uncle, is a wise and compassionate man who values his culture deeply. He strives to revive traditional rituals and values among his demoralized people. Modeste, Max Leon, and Father Grepilloux are, in many ways, parallel characters, each embodying an essential virtue of their respective cultures.

The main Euramerican characters in the narrative include Max Leon, a Spaniard who is Catharine Le Loup's husband and the father of Archilde, Louis, Agnes, and other sons. Then there's Horace Parker, the Indian agent who believes he sincerely cares about the Indians' welfare but treats them like children and fails to see the harmful effects of government paternalism. George Moser, a storekeeper, is land-poor because his debtors have used their land allotments as collateral for debts incurred for seed, food, and other farming supplies. Sheriff Dave Quigley is a strict and unyielding man whose racist views shape his law enforcement. Father Grepilloux, part of the initial Jesuit missionary group, is not the mission's actual founder. These men, each seen as good individuals within their own subcultures, represent the conflicting cultures in the story. They are inevitably doomed by misunderstandings arising from cultural differences, anger, misguided federal policies, and decades of white oppression of native peoples.

Archilde, Max, and Father Grepilloux are the primary point-of-view characters, offering much of the perspective on how they perceive each other and the other characters. For example, Max Leon is initially portrayed through Archilde's eyes as a son in conflict with his father. Later, McNickle provides an in-depth look into Max's background, from his origins in Spain to his arrival in the Montana wilderness, his interactions with the Salish people and the land, and his profound respect and friendship with Father Grepilloux, which goes beyond a typical confessor-parishioner relationship. McNickle also depicts Max in action; he is furious when the binder breaks down and goes to Moser's store for a replacement part, causing a delay in the harvest. Despite his temper, Max loves his grandsons, Mike and Narcisse, but he betrays their trust by tricking them into taking a ride in his big blue car, which ends in the Mission's yard where the boys are confined to be sent back to the federal boarding school for Indians. Max is a hard-working man whose values revolve around the land he has accumulated and the labor he has invested in it. He admires hard work in others and despises those who avoid it and don't share his respect for the land. It is only when he unexpectedly finds Archilde diligently working on his own initiative that he begins to reconsider his relationship with his youngest son.

Max's relationship with his native wife, Catharine, remains somewhat enigmatic to him but clearly symbolizes the broader and equally troubled relationship between European Americans and Native Americans in general. For instance, Max finds himself jailed because he allegedly covered for some of their sons who had stolen cattle, mixed them with his herd, and then shipped them out. When the sheriff arrived to arrest the boys, they had already "skipped out," and Catharine told the sheriff that Max had advised them to flee. "They wanted to hang me," Max confides to Archilde. Upon his release from jail, he built a large house for himself and moved out, leaving Catharine in a dirt-roofed log cabin by the creek. She became estranged from her husband of forty years, with whom she had eleven children. Mutual distrust defined their relationship, leading Max to ponder the "meaning and purpose of his life." In Max Leon's family, there was "always this distrust, this warfare," mirroring the misunderstandings and conflicts between whites and Indians.

Despite their close connection, Max and Catharine live apart yet remain entangled. Their psychological and physical separation, and the breakdown of their domestic and marital relationship, reflect the complex and destructive nature of mutual ethnocentrism. More importantly, it underscores a profoundly human theme. Max's personality—autocratic, dogmatic, abrupt yet principled and guided by strong values—is intertwined with a deep and complex love for his country and its people. Shortly before his death, Max tells Archilde, "I was a fool to think your mother was the cause of my bad luck," acknowledging his unresolved estrangement from all but one of his sons. His familial relationships exemplify the novel's exploration of the intricate theme of human entanglement, its pain, and its inevitability. Later, as Catharine lies dying, Archilde reflects, "People grew into each other, became intertwined, and life was no mere matter of existence, no mere flash of time. It was time that made the difference. . . . And a still greater difference was this entangling of lives."